Food-Related Illness and Death in the United States
نویسندگان
چکیده
Address for correspondence: Paul S. Mead, Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mail Stop A38, 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30333, USA; fax: 404-639-2205; e-mail: [email protected]. More than 200 known diseases are transmitted through food (1). The causes of foodborne illness include viruses, bacteria, parasites, toxins, metals, and prions, and the symptoms of foodborne illness range from mild gastroenteritis to life-threatening neurologic, hepatic, and renal syndromes. In the United States, foodborne diseases have been estimated to cause 6 million to 81 million illnesses and up to 9,000 deaths each year (2-5). However, ongoing changes in the food supply, the identification of new foodborne diseases, and the availability of new surveillance data have made these figures obsolete. New, more accurate estimates are needed to guide prevention efforts and assess the effectiveness of food safety regulations. Surveillance of foodborne illness is complicated by several factors. The first is underreporting. Although foodborne illnesses can be severe or even fatal, milder cases are often not detected through routine surveillance. Second, many pathogens transmitted through food are also spread through water or from person to person, thus obscuring the role of foodborne transmission. Finally, some proportion of foodborne illness is caused by pathogens or agents that have not yet been identified and thus cannot be diagnosed. The importance of this final factor cannot be overstated. Many of the pathogens of greatest concern today (e.g., Campylobacter jejuni, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Cyclospora cayetanensis) were not recognized as causes of foodborne illness just 20 years ago. In this article, we report new estimates of illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths due to foodborne diseases in the United States. To ensure their validity, these estimates have been derived by using data from multiple sources, including the newly established Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet). The figures presented include estimates for specific known pathogens, as well as overall estimates for all causes of foodborne illness, known, unknown, infectious, and noninfectious.
منابع مشابه
Ethical Agreement and Disagreement about Obesity Prevention Policy in the United States
An active area of public health policy in the United States is policy meant to promote healthy eating, reduce overconsumption of food, and prevent overweight/obesity. Public discussion of such obesity prevention policies includes intense ethical disagreement. We suggest that some ethical disagreements about obesity prevention policies can be seen as rooted in a common concern with equality or w...
متن کاملTeaching Methods and Tools Used In Food Safety Extension Education Programs in the North Central Region of the United States
One of the ways to ensure food safety is to educate the public. Of the organizations providing food safety education in the United States (U.S.), the Cooperative Extension System (CES) is one of the most reliable. The effectiveness CES programs depends not only on what is being taught but also on how it is taught. Both a needs-based curriculum and how that curriculum is delivered are equally im...
متن کاملQuality Control of Non-Sterile Drug Product According to United States’ Pharmacopeia Instruction
Pharmaceutical products are classified into two groups according to the microbiological point of view: 1) sterile products and 2) non-sterile products. The sterilized term refers to the products that are free of any microorganisms, their production were done under aseptic conditions, but the production of non-sterile products were not under aseptic conditions; therefore, they are not free from ...
متن کاملInvestigating changes in internalized stigma and avoidant coping among African American adults living with HIV and serious mental illness following a peer-led intervention
Background: Individuals living with HIV navigate the health implications of HIV and HIV discrimination. This study aimed to examine changes in internalized stigma and avoidant coping among African American adults living with HIV and serious mental illness (SMI) following a peer-led intervention. Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 16 patients were recruited using convenience sampling f...
متن کاملSocial Determinants of Polypharmacy in First Generation Mexican Immigrants in the United States
Introduction: Socioeconomic status (SES) indicators are among the main social determinants of health and illness. Less, however, is known about the role of SES in the epidemiology of polypharmacy in immigrant Latino Americans living in the United States. This research studied the association between three SES indicators, education, income, and employment, and polypharmacy in ol...
متن کاملHeat-related mortality--United States, 1997.
Environmental heat exposure can cause illness, injury, and death. This report describes four heat-related deaths that occurred in the United States during 1997 and summarizes risk factors for and reviews measures to prevent heat-related illness, injury, and death.
متن کامل